


Blood is Thicker

by Just_a_weave



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22182661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_a_weave/pseuds/Just_a_weave
Summary: After the events of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry is feeling isolated and let down by the people who should have been there to support him. He also discovers his greatest support coming from somewhere he least expected.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter One

Chapter One

_Uncle Vernon was waiting beyond the barrier. Mrs Weasley was close by him. She hugged Harry very tightly when she saw him, and whispered in his ear, ‘I think Dumbledore will let you come to us later in the summer. Keep in touch, Harry.’_

That was weeks ago, and despite all the letters that he had sent, not just to Ron and Hermione, but also to Sirius and Remus, even one to Mrs Weasley, he had received the shortest most uninformative replies, when he received anything at all. Harry rolled over and reached under his bed into the space beneath the loose floorboard and pulled out the letter he had received from Sirius at the end of term. Harry had discovered it in his pocket when he got back to the Dursleys and he still was not too sure how to interpret the contents of the short missive. 

_Pup,_

_I’ve asked Molly to slip this note to you when she had a chance, I know those muggles don’t like you corresponding with “our sort” over the summer and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to send you an owl. Firstly, I hope you’re not taking Cedric’s death too hard. It was tragic and it should not have happened, but remember it was not your fault. You could not have foreseen what was to happen and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. Naturally, you will grieve his loss, and that grief will feel much sharper when you have to deal with it on your own, but I am here for you, as is Remus. We have both known loss in our lives and hopefully we can help you if you need us._

_Alright, now that I’ve got the most important thing out of the way, there’s a few things you need to know about what’s coming up this summer. Due to the current state of affairs, Albus has ramped up security. The Death Eaters seem to be laying low, but we think you might be a target since you escaped the graveyard alive. The headmaster has imposed an information blackout so be careful what you put in any letters you send, as your owl might be intercepted. Albus has people watching your place, just in case the Death Eaters find you, and we can pull you out of there right away. I tried convincing him to just let you come stay with me this summer, but he says that family is important and the Dursleys have not seen you all year, so he wants to give you all time to reconnect. He gave Molly the same story when she asked if she could take you to the Burrow. Pardon my French but i think that is a load of hippogriff dung. You haven’t told us much about how it really is with the Dursleys, but we’ve seen enough to know that they don’t treat you right. Your Uncle always has a face like a thundercloud when he collects you from the station, you never go home for christmas, Ron has told us about the so called gifts they send you (a toothpick? really? why bother?), and how thin you always look when you come back to school. And don’t think Molly hasn’t told me about the summer before your second year when the boys had to break you loose from your own bedroom. What sort of family keeps a person locked in a room with bars on the window? I know I didn’t have the most sparkling example of a loving family growing up, but even I know that if they loved you like Dumbledore seems to think, they would not treat you like a misbehaving house elf._

_To be honest, I don’t like the way Albus is handling things, but he’s the only one we’ve got to lead us in the fight against You-Know-Who. It looks like he’s going to try to isolate you from our world so it’s more difficult for the Death Eaters to track you down, but I don’t see why the folks he’s got keeping an eye on your place aren’t allowed to make themselves known. I’m sure the Dursleys will behave themselves if they see that you’ve got a 24 hour guard. Anyway, just in case I can’t write you again soon, just remember we’ve got your back here, Pup. Me and Remus, and Molly too. We’re working on getting you out of there as soon as we can._

_Don’t let the muggles get you down,_

_Padfoot_

Harry sighed softly and returned the letter to its hiding spot under the bed. He was glad that Sirius had been able to get him this letter. Harry would have been going crazy if he had been left completely out of the loop like it seemed Dumbledore was trying to do. What was the man up to? When he had first woken up in the hospital wing after the events of the third task and had told the headmaster about what had happened in the graveyard, Harry had been confident that the old man would know best what to do in the fight against Voldemort. Harry knew that there must be a lot of things happening that he wasn’t privy to, but it was so frustrating to be completely cut off from any information from the wizarding world. Harry had given up on trying to get any information out of his friends. Their letters were empty and meaningless. Dumbledore had told them not to send sensitive information in a letter in case the dark forces intercepted their owls, exactly as Sirius had said. All Harry had found out was that they were together and hoped that Harry would be allowed to join them soon. Harry acknowledged that it was not their fault that he was stuck with the Dursleys but the unfairness of it still stung, that they were allowed to spend the summer together having fun while he was left to roam the streets of Little Whinging alone. 

\--

Harry opened his eyes to the sound of Petunia and Vernon moving around, and by the time he had pulled on a fresh set of clothes and run his fingers through his messy hair, his aunt was banging on the door demanding that he wake up and get started on breakfast. He opened his curtains and had a look around what he could see of Privet Drive, hoping to spot the witch or wizard who was lucky enough to be watching his house on this dreary overcast day. Not seeing anyone, Harry headed downstairs.

‘You took your time, boy.’ Vernon was already sitting in his place at the head of the table when Harry entered the kitchen, newspaper held up in front of him. ‘Come on, coffee!’ 

Harry filled the water reservoir in the coffee machine and spooned in some fresh coffee grounds, turning to the pantry to get started on the food while the machine did its job. Petunia grabbed him by the wrist when he passed her, swinging him around so she could look at him.

‘Now, I want you to make us a special breakfast today. My Diddykins will be home any time now, and who knows what they have been feeding him at that camp of his. If I see you trying to ruin Dudley’s breakfast in any way at all, you will be back in that cupboard before you can blink!” She glared at him until she heard a soft ‘Yes, Aunt Petunia’ and then released his wrist, turning him around and shoving him back in the direction of the pantry. Harry rubbed his wrist and gingerly moved it around, wiggling his fingers to get rid of the pins and needles that had begun to develop. He silently went about making breakfast, being sure to cook double portions of everything for Dudley’s enjoyment. When the coffee was ready, Harry poured a cup for his uncle and set it down on the table in front of the large man, getting no thanks. Before Vernon could make any more demands, they were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing, and Dudley’s voice rang out from the front hallway, ‘Mum! Dad! I’m home!’ 

Harry was momentarily rendered speechless by his cousin’s appearance when Dudley walked into the kitchen. He had to admit, all that boxing training was doing his cousin a lot of good. No longer did he look like a baby whale, waiting to be airlifted back to the ocean. Dudley’s pudgy body had matured into a beefy, muscly physique which told volumes about how hard the boy had been training during the past year.

‘Diddydums! Mummy missed you so much!’ Petunia swooped down on her son, pulling him into a crushing hug. Harry noticed that she now had to stoop slightly to hug Dudley properly. ‘Come now, darling, let mummy get you something to eat. Look at you! They must have been starving you at that school, you’re skin and bones!’ She led Dudley to his place at the table, still muttering about having a word to whoever was in charge of the food at Smeltings. 

‘Its alright, mum,’ Dudley took the plate that Petunia was trying to pile high with food and served himself a plate that to Harry’s surprise was a normal sized portion, as opposed to the gargantuan servings he was accustomed to seeing his cousin devour. He looked to where Harry stood, wiping the bench and tidying the cooking things, and motioned towards the table with his head, ‘Why don’t you join us, cousin? There’s plenty of food and I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.’

Harry glanced at his aunt and uncle before moving to join the family at the table. Vernon looked constipated and silently hid himself behind his newspaper once more. Petunia sucked on her lips as though she had been force-fed a lemon but said nothing to contradict her beloved son. So that was how, for the first time he could remember, Harry was able to enjoy a full-sized meal at the dining table with the Dursley family. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Harry was spinning, spinning, spinning. One hand seemingly glued to the Triwizard Cup, unable to order his fingers to release their grasp, his other hand holding onto his wand with all his might, frightened that if it slipped from his fingers it would be lost forever in the swirl of colours that felt like they would never stop._

_WHAM!_

_Harry hit the ground with an almighty thud. The trophy flew out of his hand and bounced away into the grass. Harry lay where he had fallen, momentarily dazed. The smell of grass and mud filled his nostrils, the dampness soaking into his robes and chilling him. The sound of footsteps approaching caught his attention, as well as the movement beside him as Cedric sat up._

_'Harry, did you know the cup was a portkey? Is this another part of the third task?'_

_Harry turned towards the hooded figure approaching as a voice spoke, 'Kill the spare.'_

_The figure lifted its arm, a wand pointed directly towards the two boys. Harry turned to Cedric, who had not noticed the danger they were in and was trying to read an ancient headstone nearby. Harry barely had time to reach his hand out towards the young man, his mouth opening to warn him when there was a flash of green light and those terrible words echoed through the graveyard._

_'AVADA KEDAVRA!'_

_\------_

'CEDRIC!' Harry lurched forward in bed, breathing hard, dripping in sweat. The light breeze coming from his open window quickly chilled him despite the warmth of the night. Harry sat with his head in his hands and waited for his breathing to slow. Harry had had this same nightmare every night since returning to the Dursley home. Sometimes he didn’t wake until after the figures of his parents and Cedric had emerged from Voldemort’s wand and he had been forced to relive the entire process of the Dark Lord’s rebirth. Those nights Harry woke gently, quietly, with tears in his eyes and a deep aching sadness that he felt in his soul. It was in the quiet of those nights that he felt the pain of loss more acutely than ever. 

The first time he had experienced that pain was when he realised the truth of what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised, and the understanding that the thing he wanted the most was something he would never have. He would never feel his mother’s loving embrace, feel his father’s hand firmly gripping his shoulder or patting him on the back. Over the years that sadness had faded as Harry learned to live without the love of family. He had come to accept that his time with the Weasleys would probably be the closest he could get to the experience of being part of a loving family. 

Hearing the voices of is parents when their shadows had been forced out of the wand was more painful than any crucio. Harry was so happy to hear how proud of him they were and their words of encouragement were something he would cherish forever. However knowing their voices was something that terrified him, the fear that he now had something of them that he could lose. One day he would wake up and realise that he no longer remembered their voices and that would be more painful than losing them in the first place. Before that day, the only thing he remembered was the sound of his mother begging Voldemort not to kill her son. That was not how he wanted to remember his mother, however he would rather have a memory of her that would not hurt to lose.

Harry’s introspection was interrupted by a gentle tap at his bedroom door. He hoped he hadn’t disturbed the Dursleys with his violent awakening, although if that was the case he would no doubt have heard his uncle thundering down the hallway towards his room, and Vernon Dursley would not have seen the need to knock politely.

'Come in,' Harry’s voice was little more than a croak but it was enough for the person on the other side of the door to hear. The bedroom door opened and in the darkness Harry recognised the shape of his cousin slipping through and closing it quietly behind him. Harry slipped on his glasses and turned on the small lamp beside his bed. The two boys stared at each other silently for a few moments, Dudley awkwardly standing by the door before speaking. 

'Are you alright, Harry?' the gentle concern in his cousin’s voice was totally foreign to Harry, who was more accustomed to hearing malice in the words directed towards him by the larger boy. Realising that Harry was not going to do more than blink at him, Dudley spoke again. 'You had another nightmare didn’t you? I can hear you sometimes, talking in your sleep.' He waited but got nothing more than a shrug from Harry. 'I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, I’ve been nothing but horrible to you for as long as you’ve lived with us.' Dudley rubbed his arm awkwardly, looking around the room that was once his second bedroom. His eyes lingered on the desk against the far wall, one leg propped up on a book to stop it wobbling. He seemed to make a decision and crossed the room, turning the desk chair and sitting to face Harry. 

Harry didn’t really know what to say. He had noticed the change in Dudley since he had come home. His cousin no longer went out of his way to make life difficult, in fact Dudley even helped with the chores sometimes, jumping to clear the table after meals and washing the dishes, offering to water the garden or hang out the washing. Most of the time Petunia or Vernon would try to wave him off, saying 'Don’t worry, the boy will take care of it. You don’t mind, do you Potter?' but that did nothing to stop Dudley from trying to help. At first Harry had been suspicious, expecting Dudley to sabotage him in some way and land him back in the cupboard as punishment for some imagined transgression. Slowly, Harry was beginning to realise that something had changed within his cousin and despite his aunt and uncle’s protests, Dudley might actually be becoming a decent human being. Harry was still eyeing Dudley when the boy began to speak again from his spot at the desk. 

  
'Don’t tell mum and dad, but I’ve been seeing the school counsellor at Smeltings. She’s been helping me. I had problems controlling my temper and the school thought maybe it’d help me if I talked to someone. You know how dad’s got connections at Smeltings? Apparently there was an understanding that they wouldn’t give me any detentions so I could avoid any black marks on my record, but I got bad enough that they couldn’t just do nothing. Mariah, the counsellor lady, she made me realise that always getting my way here at home made me think that it would be like that for my whole life. I know it sounds stupid when I say it like that. I didn’t really think about it that overtly, just I didn’t expect things to be so hard. But Mariah helped me to control my temper and instead of flipping out when things didn’t go my way, I put that energy into something positive. I started doing things for other people without expecting anything in return and it felt good! Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an overnight thing, I’ve been working on this all year, and I’ve still got miles to go, but I’m seeing Mariah less now. She says I don’t need her anymore but I’m always welcome to come to her if I get stuck and I need to talk.' Dudley stopped talking and glanced up from his feet, seeming to realise the amount of word vomit that had fallen out. 

Harry looked at Dudley, trying to figure out why his cousin was telling him all of this. Dudley looked embarrassed at how much he had shared, shrinking slightly under his smaller cousin’s piercing gaze. A small part of Harry was enjoying how uncomfortable the larger boy looked, but seeing that Dudley wasn’t about to leave any time soon, he decided to speak, trying to choose his words carefully.

'I’m happy for you, Dudley. You’ve found a way to feel good about yourself without needing to make others feel worse. But why are you telling me all this at –' Harry glanced at his bedside clock before realising it hadn’t worked since the previous summer, '-whatever time it is?'  
'I didn’t mean to ramble, I just wanted you to know why I’ve changed. I’ve seen how you look at me when I try to help, like you’re feeding a stray dog and expecting it to bite your hand every time you give it a piece of bread.'

Harry didn’t respond but quirked an eyebrow, so Dudley continued. 'I just wanted you to know that I’m not going back to how it was before. I don’t want to be the way I was. That was a path that would lead me to nothing good. I was eating myself to death and likely to end up in prison one way or another. And I’m sorry. I probably should have started with that. I’m sorry for how I treated you, and I’m sorry I was a complete nightmare to live with. All this time we could have been like brothers, I could have grown up with someone I could count as a real friend, but instead I was a spoilt brat and you were treated like our servant, someone less than human sometimes.'

Dudley went back to looking at his feet and Harry took pity on him. He could see that his cousin was really trying, and decided not to let him suffer. 'You can’t really blame yourself completely for how I was treated, Dudley. You just followed the example your parents set for you. You saw how they treated me compared to you and heard the things they said to and about me. It was inevitable that you would think of me as someone below you.'

Dudley looked up, meeting Harry’s eyes, 'I really am sorry, though. I was a bully, and not just to you. But I know now that it was wrong of me. At Smeltings...' Dudley trailed off, wondering if he should continue, and Harry could tell he was struggling. 'At Smeltings some of the older boys teased me. They called me a mummy’s boy and made fun of my weight. I know it’s nothing compared to what I did to you, but it still hurt my feelings. I can’t imagine what you must have gone through if a bit of teasing made me feel the way it did. I promise, I’ll never be like that again, it’s horrible being on the receiving end.'

'It wasn’t just you, Dudley. What about Piers and Malcolm and them? You can’t take responsibility for them too.'

'They were only following my lead, and you can’t say you didn’t give us a challenge with the way you almost always managed to get away. Once you disappeared off to your special school they kinda lost interest in it all. Chasing little kids wasn’t any fun when they just rolled over and accepted their fate. Anyway, Malcolm’s been different since his dad died, quieter. No one really knows what happened there, some sort of home invasion? Me and the guys think Mal blames himself for hiding instead of defending his dad, but I don’t know, he’s not the sort of person to open up about his feelings. I’ve tried telling him he needs to find an outlet for his emotions instead of bottling it up, but he just blew up at me. Called me a pansy and told me he’d thump me if I brought it up again.'

Harry smiled slightly at the though of anyone trying to thump Dudley, much less the weedy boy he remembered Malcolm being. 

'So anyway.' Dudley returned to his original reason for coming into Harry’s bedroom. 'Did you want to talk? I’m not asking you to spill your guts to me or anything. But I know you’ve been having nightmares and I just want you to know that I’m here to listen if you need to talk. Mariah always says that a burden shared is a burden halved.'

Harry thought for a moment, wondering if he could trust his cousin with this. Was this all just an elaborate ruse? Did Dudley actually care or was he just looking for new ammunition to use against him? Then again, thought Harry, after all he had been through over the past years, all the dangers he had faced, things that genuinely could have ended his life, what could Dudley do that was worse than that? And now with Voldemort back that danger was only going to increase. Harry decided to take a chance. 

'I’ve had a bad year, Dudley, worse than usual anyway. I’m not really ready to talk about it all, and there’s a lot that you wouldn’t really understand because you’re a mug- um, because you’re not like me. I saw someone die. Another student. It was my fault he was there, I should have gone alone but I didn’t know it would happen.'

Harry took a deep breath, wondering if his cousin, who had never been exposed to anything as horrific as cold blooded murder, was emotionally equipped to handle this information. 'You know what, Dudley? I don’t think this is the right time. There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened, and I’m not sure what all of it means yet. I’ve been waiting for people to write to me and tell me what’s going on but there’s been nothing. All I know is that bad things are going to happen and as usual I’m going to be right in the middle of it.'


	3. Chapter 3

Petunia Dursley would never admit that she was a terribly nosy person, however she was happy to say that she was simply concerned with the things that were happening around her. Sometimes those things happened to involve the neighbours and their slightly-too-loud conversations over the fence, sometimes it was Mrs Number Seven’s midday visitor while her husband was at work. Today, Petunia was concerning herself with the conversation that was happening outside the slightly-opened kitchen window. Her son and nephew had been weeding the garden for most of the afternoon, slowly working their way around the perimeter of the back lawn and Petunia had been listening into the conversation they were having since they had come within earshot. At first she was horrified that her beastly nephew was telling her darling boy all about his freakish school and filling his head with nonsense. However the mention of the man who had murdered her sister caught her attention and she had spent close to an hour listening to the boys talk as they moved around the garden. She had been forced to move to different windows several times in order to keep listening, and as time went on she became more and more concerned.

There was no love lost between herself and her nephew. She knew very little about what had occurred on the night Lily had died, but what she did know was that the blame could all be put at the feet of James Potter and freaks like him. The fact that his son looked so much like him did nothing to help the boy and simply served as a reminder of the world that had come between her and her baby sister. Sure, she had been jealous at first, what child wouldn’t have felt that way when their younger sibling suddenly became the favourite child? Then she was chosen to go to a special school for gifted children and even when she was away for months at a time, mummy and daddy never stopped talking about her. Petunia grew up feeling as though nothing she could ever do would be as special to her parents as Lily waving her little stick and doing the impossible.

But all of this was beside the point. Petunia, despite her feelings for her nephew, was horrified at what she was hearing. A teacher possessed by the spirit of her sister’s murderer had tried to murder Potter while in the process of stealing a priceless artefact that for some reason had been hidden in a school. That same teacher had then been killed by some sort of magic infused in her nephew’s skin by his mother’s sacrifice. The following year a giant snake with eyes that could kill was allowed to wander loose in the school, leaving several students near to death in the hospital wing. A girl was then kidnapped by a ghost in a book which attempted to absorb her life-force, and the teacher sent to her rescue was a fraud who tried to attack Potter and another student but only managed to injure himself, giving himself amnesia. Potter was then bitten by the deadly snake and should have died if it wasn’t for the magical tears of a phoenix of all things! Petunia had been forced to hold in her gasp when she peeked out of the window when Dudley had asked to see the scar on Potter’s arm. The boy claimed that the wound had been a large one and that the phoenix tears had done a brilliant job of healing it, however there was still a raised pucker of scar tissue on his right forearm and a smaller silver scar on the underside of his arm. If the fang had been long enough to completely pierce through Potters arm, sliding cleanly between his ulna and radius bones, Petunia shuddered to contemplate the potential size of the beast.

By the time the boys reached the spot in the garden below the kitchen window they were well into Potter’s third year at that terrible school. They had hired a werewolf to teach the students with absolutely no warning or defensive preparations. In fact, if she understood this correctly, they had the werewolf teaching the students how to defend themselves against other dark creatures. The only thing to overshadow that lot of bad judgement was the fact that the school spent the entire academic year guarded by dementors. Petunia shuddered, remembering what that horrible boy had told Lily about the creatures all those years ago.

Petunia’s maternal instinct was on high alert by the time the boys were discussing the attack by Sirius Black. Not to mention the discovery that a rat was actually the man who had sold out her sister to her murderer, a werewolf transforming so close to helpless students, followed by the dementors attacking, before Harry (she had to admit at this point that the boy was nothing like what she remembered of his father) had travelled back in time and helped his fugitive godfather escape execution and fly away on some sort of giant bird-horse which had also been waiting for execution. Petunia’s head was spinning. This poor boy. She had thought that her nephew had been spoiled all these years at that school of his. From what she knew, he was a hero in that world, the boy who survived or some such nonsense. Surely they treated him like a little prince. How wrong she had been. All this time she hadn’t thought twice about how she treated her nephew, thinking it would do him some good to be taken down a few pegs and stop him developing an overinflated ego.

Deep down, Petunia knew that it was wrong to punish the boy for his father’s sins, and really, it was Vernon that did most of the punishing, but she couldn’t help the way she felt whenever she looked at him and had hoped one day to stamp it out. It was his eyes. Lily’s eyes. Every time Petunia met Harry’s eyes it was as though she was pierced by daggers, and she was taken back to the last time she had spoken to Lily and the guilt threatened to consume her again.

\--

Harry sat back on his heels as he finished pulling the last weed. He tossed it onto the pile on the garden path. He lay back on the lawn and stared up at the clouds passing overhead. Dudley joined him after washing his hands at the garden tap. Harry had been surprised at how easy it had been to talk to his cousin about his time at Hogwarts. Harry had needed to explain many things so that they would make sense to someone who had never experienced life in the wizarding world, but overall it hadn’t been too difficult of a conversation. Dudley obviously had many questions but was clearly holding them back other than asking for clarification on things he didn’t understand. Harry was grateful that his cousin understood how important it was for Harry to get it all out before he changed his mind about being this open. There would be time for more questions later. But now came the hardest part for Harry to remember.

‘This year was the first year that I regret going to Hogwarts. Everything seems to have gone wrong almost from the start, before I had even gotten to school. You remember how the Weasleys picked me up early?’ Dudley nodded, touching his lips uncomfortably as he remembered those cursed toffees.

‘Well, we went to the Quidditch World Cup. The game was fantastic but that night the Death Eaters attacked the campsite. It was pure chaos, they set things on fire, they were particularly nasty to the non-magical people there, levitating them high into the air. But luckily no-one was killed as far as I know. I think their main aim was to let people injure themselves in the panic. You know, maximum results with minimal effort.’ Harry rolled over onto his front and propped himself up on his elbow while picking at blades of grass.

‘Once we got to school we found out about the Triwizard Tournament. Groups from two other magical schools would be coming to Hogwarts to compete. One student from each school would be chosen to represent their student body and they would compete in three tasks. This sounds great, right? A fun distraction from the dull and dreary school years I usually have, right?’ Dudley nodded again, but seemed to realise that this was definitely not the case considering Harry’s tone. ‘What if I told you that the tournament had been discontinued centuries ago because the death toll became unacceptable?’

Dudley gulped, ‘I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?’

‘Not at all, Dud, not at all. The first thing to go wrong for me was being chosen as the fourth champion. In a competition with only three champions. And the moment I was chosen to compete I was bound into an inescapable magical contract that would completely destroy my magic if I didn’t participate. So I had no choice in it really. My best mate at school refused to believe me when I said I didn’t enter myself and he turned against me until after he realised how dangerous the first task turned out to be. But the thing is, he should have known seeing as his older brother was involved in the setup for the first task, and he didn’t see the need to warn me at all. Dragons, Dudley. The first task was to face a flipping dragon!’

Dudley’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Harry wasn’t sure if he was shocked that they wanted a fourteen year old to face a dragon or at the fact that dragons existed at all, but he suspected it was the latter.

‘Anyway, I suspect that the reason he apologised wasn’t because he suddenly believed that I hadn’t entered myself without letting him in on the secret, he just realised that he would never have wanted to be in my position. Skipping forward to the second task. We had to rescue a hostage. We were told that if we didn’t manage to save our hostage within the hour time limit they would be lost forever. And they put our hostage deep underwater in the great lake near our school. To summarise: I had to figure out how to breathe underwater for an hour and rescue someone who meant a lot to me, and if I did not succeed, their death would be on my conscience. You remember that house elf who almost killed me by trying to keep me safe in second year? He was the only reason I made it through that task. If he hadn’t given me a handful of a plant that made me grow gills I wouldn’t have been able to save Ron.’

Dudley could see that the next part was the most difficult bit for Harry. By this point he had realised that the third task out of the three was what Harry had nightmares about, although he was sure that if he had been in Harry’s shoes he would have had nightmares about so much more that had happened at Hogwarts over the years.

‘The third task was a giant hedge maze filled with all sorts of dangerous things. Creatures, enchanted traps, the maze itself was alive. The walls rearranged themselves at random and we could have been trapped in there forever, or at least until the task ended and the teachers rescued the rest of us. It seemed so simple. Get to the middle of the maze and find the Triwizard Cup. First champion to get the cup wins fame and glory and all the rest. Cedric and I – Cedric was the other Hogwarts champion – we got to the centre of the maze at the same time, but I was the one to beat the giant spider. He told me to take the cup, said that I deserved it. But my damned sense of fairness made me tell him to take it. I should have listened to him and just grabbed the bloody thing. But I told him we should grab it at the same time, it would have been a Hogwarts victory either way.’ Harry stopped speaking. Dudley, who had paled slightly at the mention of the giant spider, was watching him silently, afraid to break the silence lest the story go unfinished. After a long while, Harry continued to quietly speak, choosing his words carefully.

‘It was a portkey. A portkey is an object that, when activated by a password or a touch, transports you to a different place almost instantly. It all happened so quickly. We landed in a graveyard and before we had really gotten our bearings, he killed Cedric. Wormtail. Wormtail killed Cedric. I didn’t have time to warn him, I barely had time to even open my mouth. I was looking right at him when the curse hit him and he went down. He was just laying there, his eyes wide open, but the light behind them had been snuffed out. I think we could have been good friends, if we’d been given the chance. He was a good person, he didn’t deserve to die like that. He never saw it coming.’ Harry swallowed thickly, willing away the tears he felt forming behind his eyes. He didn’t speak for a long moment.

Dudley spoke up when it seemed that Harry was not going to continue. ‘I’m so sorry Harry. I don’t know what to say, I’ve never even come close to experiencing anything like what you’ve been through.’

‘It didn’t end there, Dud.’ Harry cleared his throat, as emotion had made his voice a bit raspy. ‘Wormtail tied me to a headstone and then picked up a...a thing that had been laying in the grass nearby. That’s when I noticed the cauldron. Wormtail did a ritual. He dropped in the thing he was carrying, cracked open the grave I was tied to and stole a bone, he cut me and took my blood.’ Harry lifted his sleeve and showed Dudley the scar in the crook of his arm. The mark was still fresh and had yet to fade completely into a silver-white scar.

‘What was he doing, Harry?’ Dudley was completely invested in the story, he needed to know where this was going. ‘Did all those years pretending to be a rat drive him mad? Was he consumed by some sort of crazy need to finish what he started when he told Voldemart where your parents were hiding?’

Harry pretended not to notice Dudley’s mispronunciation of Voldemort’s name, but inside he was amused and grateful for his cousin accidentally lightening the mood.

‘Yes and no. He must have always been a little mad, to become a Death Eater in the first place, or maybe just scared and convinced that they could make him powerful or something. But finishing what he started? That’s closer to the truth than you know. That thing he put into the cauldron? That was what was left of Voldemort. It was something terrible, inhuman, disgusting to look at. But it was sentient and aware enough to give orders. I assume that was how Wormtail knew how to perform the ritual, he certainly wasn’t intelligent enough to think it up himself.’ Harry made a mental note to ask Sirius about what Wormtail was really like. He would rather not underestimate the nasty little man and be caught out next time they came face to face.

‘I watched as the darkest wizard of the modern world was reborn from that cauldron. Fully grown and more terrifying than anything I could have imagined.’

Harry was interrupted by a crashing sound from the kitchen and his Aunt Petunia bursting out of the back door. She dropped to her knees on the ground before the two boys, uncaring of the grass stains that were surely ruining her cream coloured trousers, her face pale and eyes wide with fear.

‘He’s back? He can’t be back! Dumbledore said in his letter that he was gone!’ She looked from Harry to Dudley and back to Harry again as though hoping they would suddenly burst into laughter and tell her it was all an elaborate joke. When neither boy spoke, more out of shock that Petunia had been so obviously eavesdropping than anything else, she leaned forward, grabbed Harry by the shoulders, and shook him slightly. ‘Tell me he’s not back!’

Harry could hear the hint of hysteria that was beginning to creep into his aunt’s voice and wished he could give her some good news. ‘I’m sorry Aunt Petunia, I can’t tell you that. I watched him climb out of that cauldron. It wasn’t the first time I faced him, but it was the first time he had his own body, and he didn’t seem like he was planning to leave it again any time soon.’ Harry turned to his cousin as he got to his feet, ‘Come on Dudley, let’s get your mum into the kitchen. I’ll make us all some tea to settle our nerves.’

Dudley helped his mother back to her feet and lead her inside where she took a seat at the table. Harry put the kettle on to boil and Dudley pulled out some teacups. ‘You’re going to tell me the rest of what happened, aren’t you Harry? I mean, I can’t imagine him letting you leave after what you saw, but obviously he didn’t kill you since you’re back here now.’

Petunia piped up from her place at the kitchen table, ‘I’m also interested in hearing the rest of your story, if you wouldn’t mind.’ Harry was surprised at the lack of hostility in his Aunt’s voice, and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

‘Well, seeing as you seem to have already heard so much of what I’ve said, I might as well let you sit in for the rest. There’s not that much more to it anyway.’

Once the tea was made and everyone was settled at the table with a cup in their hands, Harry began to speak again. ‘Once he’d dressed himself and Wormail had given him back his wand, Voldemort called his followers. I guess he wanted them all to watch him finally finish me off. I was still tied to the gravestone and Wormtail had taken my wand. I was completely helpless. He could have killed me right then and there and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop him. I guess I was lucky that Voldemort has a flair for the dramatic. He wanted to draw it out.’ Harry stopped to take a sip of his tea, burning his lips slightly on the still too-hot liquid. Dudley was leaning forward, elbows on the table and tea completely forgotten, eager to absorb every word that Harry said. Petunia was holding her cup in both hands, staring into the milky depths and listening intently.

‘He made the Death Eaters form a circle around us and gave me back my wand. He wanted to fight me. I guess the embarrassment of being defeated by a defenceless baby last time still stung and he wanted me to go out with a bang this time.’ Harry paused, not really knowing how to describe what happened next and hoping that they would understand, ‘The thing is, Voldemort and I, our wands have the same core. A phoenix feather from the same bird. One went into my wand and one went into his, making our wands brothers. Brother wands were never meant to fight each other, so when I faced Voldemort and we cast at each other, our wands connected. I don’t know how but I managed to overpower him, maybe he was still weak from the ritual, maybe he was distracted, either way, when it happened, his wand started spitting out these...shadows.’ Harry put his cup on the table, noticing that his hands had begun to tremble slightly. By this time, Petunia had put her cup down on the table and for a moment she seemed about to reach out and place a hand on his, but retracted her hand almost as soon as it had begun to move.

‘What happened next, Harry?’ Dudley broke the silence.

‘The shadows were his victims. I don’t know if they were ghosts, or just something like a snapshot of those people at the moment they died. But they were aware of what was going on, they spoke. Cedric came out first, since he was Voldemort’s most recent victim, then there was a man and a woman who I didn’t know. And then...and then I saw...’ this time Harry couldn’t hold back the tears that filled his eyes. He removed his glasses and swiped a sleeve across his face. ‘My parents came out next.’ Petunia’s cup, which she had just picked up again, rattled against the saucer and she immediately put it back down on the table.

‘For the first time that I can remember, my mother and father spoke to me. I know they’re dead and whatever came out of that wand wasn’t the real them, but do you know what it’s like to go your whole life not knowing how much you needed something? I never knew just how deeply I was yearning to hear the voices of my parents. To hear that they love me and are proud of me. And now that I’ve heard that, I’m terrified that it’ll be taken away from me. When they rushed Voldemort and gave me the chance to escape, I ran twice as hard because I couldn’t let him take their voices away from me. This memory was mine, is mine. I couldn’t let that bastard take them away from me again.’

Harry simply stared at the table, letting the silence grow. Petunia sat silently, tears running down her face. Dudley was lost for words, not wanting to speak and ruin the moment. Slowly they picked up their now cold cups and finished their tea, all too exhausted to pour fresh cups. Finally, Petunia broke the silence.

‘The night you lost your mother, I also lost a sister, Harry. I know it doesn’t excuse anything I’ve done to you in the past, but I just want you to understand my side of things. From the moment you came to us, all I could see every time I looked at you was her. Your eyes are her eyes and every time they looked at me I saw her judging me, hating me and begging to know why I abandoned her all those years ago. But I wasn’t the one that walked out. That was her. She left me for that world, the world that showed her how much better she was than us normal people. And once she met your father she was totally lost to me, there was no hope of convincing her to come back and returning to the way we used to be.’ Petunia sighed. ‘I know it sounds like I was some sort of rejected lover, but really, I felt like my best friend had left me as soon as she found something better. That world,’ she paused, ‘Your world was so extraordinary, something none of us had ever believed was possible, and Lily, being the sort of person who grabbed at every opportunity to absorb new knowledge, was immediately obsessed. It was like all of us in the normal world didn’t matter any more and all she cared about was the new freaks she had adopted as her friends. I miss her every day and I wish she hadn’t died that night, but part of me will always be guilty because the main reason I wish she had survived was so I could tell her that this was exactly the sort of thing I was trying to tell her when I said that all this involvement with such abnormal types would lead to nothing good. If she had survived I hope that this event would have spurred her to abandon that rubbish and come back to where she belongs. I would tell you the same but somehow I don’t think they would let you go.’ Petunia looked sadly at Harry, as though mourning the death of the boy he could have been if he had been normal.

‘I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I had wanted to. There’s a war coming now that Voldemort is back and I have friends and people that I care about who are going to suffer. And on top of that, Voldemort is fixated on me because I’m the one that got away, so even if I disappeared from the wizarding world or left the country and started fresh in a different wizarding community, I don’t think he would ever let me truly escape from my past. Because of what happened when I miraculously survived and somehow made him disappear, I am a symbol in the wizarding world. I’m living proof that we can stand up against evil and survive. If I was to leave the wizarding world now that Voldemort has taken things up a gear, the people would see it as a sign that things were beyond resolution. If the boy who lived doesn’t believe that we can beat them, there’s no chance for anyone. I have to stay. My friends are part of that world; the Weasleys took me in as if I was family. Think back to how you felt when my mother left you and disappeared into a world that you had no idea about and no way to get to her. That is what it would be like if I left wizarding Britain except the media would take it and turn it into “Boy Who Lives Declares That We Are All Doomed” or some rubbish like that. There was a reporter following the Triwizard Tournament last year and if she was allowed to take as much creative license as she did, I would hate to see what sort of headlines the paper would allow if I was to actually do something controversial.’

It was at this point that the trio heard Vernon Dursley’s car pull up in the driveway. The late afternoon sunlight had slowly gotten dimmer and when Vernon walked into the kitchen he was met by an eerie atmosphere. His wife, son and nephew were sitting in almost-darkness at the kitchen table, empty teacups sitting on the table in front of them. The dinner he had expected was non-existent and it didn’t look like it was likely to materialise anytime soon.

‘What on earth is going on here? Petunia, are you unwell?’ without waiting for an answer, he continued. ‘Boy! Where is my dinner? You know what time I'm expected to get home from work, and you know I expect to have a hot meal on the table when I get here. Is there something wrong in that freakish brain of yours that has prevented you from doing your duty and providing me with my dinner?’

‘Leave him alone, Vernon. The world doesn’t revolve around you.’ There was dead silence when Petunia spoke. She had never, in living memory, ever contradicted or reprimanded Vernon.

\--

By the time Harry went to bed that night, a heavy tension was hovering around the Dursley house, like a spring waiting to snap. Dinner had been silent, with Uncle Vernon glaring around the table at anyone who used their cutlery too loudly, constantly shooting suspicious looks at Harry and harrumphing when Aunt Petunia asked him how his day at work was. Harry was more than happy to escape to his bedroom at the end of dinner when Aunt Petunia had said not to worry about the dishes. The boys suspected that Petunia had hoped to talk to Vernon, but the man had moved into the lounge room as soon as he had finished eating, turning on the television loud enough to drown out any attempt at conversation.

Harry was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling at the patterns made by the streetlights outside, when he heard the soft sound of his bedroom door opening as his cousin slipped into the room. The end of the bed dipped as Dudley sat down. 

‘They’re fighting,’ Dudley whispered, ‘I’ve never heard them argue before.’

Harry studied his cousin in the darkness. He, Harry, had also never known his aunt and uncle to argue, but he had spent his childhood cooking and cleaning, leaving him little time to take an interest in the personal lives of his guardians. Harry assumed, considering his cousin’s spoilt upbringing, that Dudley had been too self-absorbed to notice anything happening in anyone else’s personal lives. Also, Petunia and Vernon had the need to always put forward the appearance of a perfectly happy family, so any disagreements between the two of them would be carried out where none of the neighbours could overhear or witness. Add to that all the time that Harry had spent at Hogwarts and he was sure that he could honestly agree with Dudley that he had never seen or heard his aunt and uncle arguing.

The two boys crept over to the wall that Harry’s room shared with the master bedroom and pressed their ears against it to listen. At first they couldn’t hear much, as the Dursley parents were arguing in whispers, but then their voices began to filter through.

‘But Petunia, we hate the boy! You hate the boy!’

‘I THOUGHT I DID!’ Petunia’s voice was barely more than a hiss. ‘My sister died because of people like him. But did you ever stop and think about what they were doing to him? Every year he came back here to us with scrapes and bruises and we never even questioned it. We were supposed to be his family!’

‘I will not have any freak as part of my family!’ Harry could imagine Vernon’s moustache bristling with anger. ‘I put up with it for this long because he was out of the way and pulled his weight around here, but I will not tolerate him being allowed to lounge around on my furniture and be treated like a prince!’

‘Vernon Dursley, you know for a fact that Harry Potter has never been treated like a prince in this house. And how is sitting down to have a cup of tea with his family considered lounging around?’ Petunia was having none of his nonsense. Her eyes had been opened finally after all these years and she would not let her bigoted, selfish, and (if she thought about it) abusive husband win this argument. For too long she had allowed herself to go along with his treatment of her nephew, but she was putting her foot down now, once and for all. 

‘Come on, Pet.’ Vernon tried a different tactic. ‘This isn’t you talking. He’s done something to you, poisoned your mind. Just let me take care of it, we’ll send him somewhere far away, make sure he can’t get to you and Dudley, and then all of this will go back to normal and we can finally be the family we were meant to be.’ 

‘Send him away? We’re the only family he has left. He is the only connection I have left to my sister-‘ Vernon interrupted her.

‘A sister you would still have if she hadn’t been a freak!’

There was silence. Vernon’s words, no longer whispered, seemed to hang in the air.

When Petunia finally began to speak, the venom in her words made Harry shiver.

‘I think you should leave, Vernon.’

Vernon spluttered, ‘Wait, what? I am not leaving, he’s leaving!’

‘He is my family, my blood. Harry Potter is my family and this is his home, and he will stay here for as long as he wishes to be part of this family. I will not allow you or anyone else to do him harm or drive him away and if you don’t like it then I demand that you leave and never darken this doorstep again!’

It was at this point that Harry noticed his room had suddenly gotten brighter. He turned to the window and gasped at the sight that met his eyes. There was a pure golden dome of light that had formed over the Dursley property, bathing it in an otherworldly glow. Dudley, who had followed Harry to the window seemed confused at the look of amazement on his cousin’s face.

‘What is it, Harry?’

‘You don’t see it?’ Harry tore his gaze away from the beautiful sight outside to look questioningly at Dudley. 

‘Nope,’ Dudley leaned forward and slid the window open, trying to get a look at whatever had caught Harry’s attention. ‘Whoa! What is that?’

‘You do see it!’ 

‘No, but as soon as I opened the window I got this weird feeling. You know, like when you put your hand too close to one of those old television sets and the static makes your skin feel fuzzy? It was only for a moment but I’ve never felt anything like it before, it just washed right over me!’ He lifted his arm and Harry could see that all the little hairs were still standing up.

The boys were distracted once again by a ruckus that seemed to have moved into the hallway. They went over to the door and opened it a crack, Harry kneeling down so they could both look at the same time. Petunia was dragging a suitcase down the stairs towards the front door. It had obviously been packed in a hurry and Harry recognised the sleeve of one of Vernon’s work shirts hanging out of a gap where the zipper hadn’t been fully closed. 

‘Petunia, this is madness!’ Vernon was following close behind his wife and trying to reason with her. As soon as they were out of sight the two boys left Harry’s room and watched from the top of the stairs as Petunia opened the front door and dragged the suitcase outside, dumping it on the footpath before returning to the house. She stood just inside the doorway, hands on her hips, and huffed angrily.

‘Get out. You are no longer welcome here, Vernon. You obviously have no idea about the value of family. All you care about is yourself and your own comfort. Well I hope you’re comfortable living with Marge and her filthy mutts. Goodbye.’ She pointed out the door and waited for him to leave. Vernon just stared at her, speechless, for a moment, before his eyes trailed upwards, past the top of her head, and he made eye contact with Harry. Harry was frozen to the spot and watched helplessly as his uncle’s face slowly turned purple and his moustache puffed out with pure rage.

‘BOY! THIS IS YOUR FAULT! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO TEAR THIS FAMILY APART!’ He took one step towards the stairs, clearly intending to do some damage to his nephew, when there was a sizzle in the air, felt by all in the house.

BANG!

Vernon flew backwards through the air, all the way out of the house and off the property. He landed in a heap on top of his suitcase, tangled up in his pyjama shirt, and there was just enough time before the front door slammed shut for the three remaining residents of number 4 Privet Drive to hear his cry of ‘FREAKS!’


End file.
